30.1
BY grace we are indwelt by God. Since God is present in us and maintaining us in existence, what further indwelling can there be? What is the difference between God's presence in us by nature, and His indwelling in us by grace? We have no choice, not being consulted before God brought us into existence, and not consulted, as to our remaining in existence. We cannot escape this existence-giving presence of God, nor can demons in hell or the lost souls. They have nothing of God but His presence. This is awful for them, as it sustains in existence beings, who for their own fulfillment, need other gifts from Him and must suffer in their absence.
Being requires nothing from us, but to be super-naturally, we must do something. God's presence is not by our invitation, but His indwelling is. God's indwelling means God making Himself at home in us, and depends upon our invitation. When we are infants, the sponsor extends the invitation to Him on our behalf, and reaching the use of reason, we confirm the invitation. We can withdraw it at any time, losing God's indwelling and left with His presence.
We may see the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity by grace, not simply as God's action on our souls, but as the result of the soul's reaction to God's action. Inviting God to make Himself at home in us, produces a vast energizing of God in our soul, or a vast development of the soul, resulting from its willing response to God's energizing. Everything hangs on Sanctifying Grace being a real trans-formation of the soul. Luther taught that the soul in grace is wearing the garment of Christ's merits, while the Church teaches that the very substance of the soul is renewed. The soul is affected in its very being, and can be called a new creation. It has a new life in it, a life with its own vital "organs" and operations. It can now perform actions at the level of its new being, supernatural actions that can merit a super-natural reward. St. Paul speaks of us as in Christ a new creature. (2 Cor. 5:17), “the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth.”
It remains the same soul, with the same faculties. Soul and faculties are not destroyed when some new thing takes their place, but are elevated to a new level of life, and the operations with it. Grace does not destroy nature, but is built into it, and from within elevates it. The intellect has the new power of faith. The will has the new powers of hope and charity. The point is so important that a rough analogy may help. The wire in an electric light bulb, connected with the battery, is luminous. Looking at it, we seem to see only light, and no wire. We might be tempted to think that the wire was gone and that the light had taken its place. Yet it is the same wire, only luminous; and if the connection with the source of power is broken, we see that it is the same wire. The soul in grace is luminous, but it does not cease to be the soul. The soul is made luminous with Sanctifying Grace, with the Theological Virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity, with the Moral Virtues, Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude and with the gifts of the Holy Spirit Knowledge, Understanding, Wisdom, Counsel, Fortitude, Piety and Fear of the Lord.
Let us note the distinction between the Theological Virtues and the Moral Virtues, also called the Cardinal Virtues. To understand the distinction, we must distinguish between the end of an action and its object. The end of every virtue is God. It is for God that we do it. The object of a virtue may not be God, but some created thing. The end action of a boy is serving at Benediction, is the glory of God; but the object of his action is the thurible. If he concentrates so exclusively on the end of his action, neglecting the object, he will probably spill the incense. The reason why Faith, Hope and Charity are called theological virtues is that God, or some attribute of God, is not only their end, but their object too. By Faith we believe in God; by Hope we desire to come to God; by Charity we love God. St. Thomas says (S.T. 1-2, q.64. a.4), “God Himself is the measure and rule of a theological virtue: our faith is regulated according to God's truth, charity according to His goodness, hope according to the greatness of His omnipotence and His love for us.”
The Moral Virtues have God for their end, but their object is the created universe. By Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude we are given the power to handle created things, ourselves and other things, that we may attain God.
There are two ways of receiving the Supernatural Life, the easy way of the baptized infant, and the harder way of the man, who reaches it in adult life. Either way, one can receive only as the whole of it, theological virtues, moral virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit. This life in us can grow, as we have seen, but just as it is received only as a whole, it can grow only as a whole.
For a clearer understanding of this Supernatural Life and its reception, we should consider for a moment those who receive it in adult life. They cannot receive Supernatural Life unless God gives it. No natural action could merit a supernatural reward. Prior to reception of Sanctifying Grace, they must receive that special help from God, which is called Actual Grace. It may simplify our understanding, if we think of Sanctifying Grace, as Supernatural Life, and Actual Grace, as Supernatural Impulsion. By Actual Grace, God provides us with sort of a thrust or impetus, making us capable of an action that is beyond our powers. If we co-operate with this impulsion from God, then we will receive Supernatural Life, either a beginning of it, or an increase in what we already have it. Note, there is no beginning of Supernatural Life without Supernatural Impulsion. There is no seed of Supernatural Life in our nature, it is wholly a gift.
30.2
The root of the Supernatural Life, when God gives it to us, is Faith. St. Paul writes:
“Once justified, then, on the ground of our faith, let us enjoy peace with God through Our Lord Jesus Christ, as it was through Him that we have obtained access, by faith, to that grace in which we stand.” (Rom. 5:1-2) The Vatican Council gives us the definition: Faith is a supernatural virtue by which, under the inspiration and with the aid of God's grace, we hold for true, what God has revealed not because we have perceived its intrinsic truth by the natural light of reason, but on the authority of God Himself as its revealer, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
Faith is defined by St. Thomas (S.T. 2-2, q 4. a.2) as an act of the intellect assenting to a divine truth owing to the movement of the will, the will in its turn being moved by the grace of God: the act of the intellect is the intellect's assent to whatever God has said because He has said it. In this statement, God gives Actual Grace, a supernatural impulsion to the will. The will then moves the intellect to make its act of assent. This says nothing of evidence, of argument, of what we sometimes call grounds of belief; nor of prayer, humility and such. The whole process is attributed to God. The function, of prayer and intellectual inquiry, is solely preparatory. In the production of the virtue of faith, they have no direct role. God moves the will, which moves the intellect. God does no violence to nature. He does not force the will or intellect to act against the nature, He has given them. The function of prayer and humility prepares the will, so that when the impulsion comes from God, it is ready accept that impulsion, with no violence done to its own nature as a will. The function of evidence and argument prepares the intellect, so that when it feels the impulsion of the God-moved will, it will co-operate with that impulsion, with no violence to its own nature as an intellect. It would be outside God's normal mode of working on man, to move his intellect to an assent, for which nothing had prepared it, against which much of its own experience, as an intellect, might well have predisposed it.
Provided that intellectual inquiry, by way of argument on the evidence, has prepared the intellect to go along with the impulsion from God, it has served its purpose. The virtue of faith in no way depends on it, but solely on God moving the soul to it, and sustaining the soul in it. Reason can produce a flawless chain of arguments, showing there is a God, a God that became man and revealed certain truths. A man might, by the sole power of reason, unmoved by God's grace, follow the arguments and assent to the truths. This assent would not be the supernatural virtue of faith. It would be produced in him and sustained by arguments, whereas the assent of faith is produced in us and sustained in us by God. Though the arguments for revelation are flawless in themselves, not every believer sees them so. On seeing them vaguely, or superficially; one may be unable to sustain them against an objector. A perfect grasp of the arguments is no substitute for the grace of faith. Likewise, a defect in them, for a given man, does not weaken or invalidate his faith. Faith is not produced by arguments, founded on them or kept in being by them. They do not produce faith in our souls, but only make us willing to let God produce it. They make us willing to open the shutter to let the light pour in. Opening the shutter is necessary for the light, but it does not produce the light.
It is pleasant, being human, to know that we can stumble towards the light. With the rarity of powerful intellects, it is fortunate that faith exists with imperfect intellects. The light is the fact. The believer cannot always state a flawless logical case for his faith, just as a man might not know how electricity works. He has no doubt about the light, as he is living in it. Similarly, faith carries with it a kind of certainty, which no chain of argument can produce. By logic we see that a thing must be so: by faith we see it so. Faith is perfected by the gift of Understanding. Faith is gives substance to our hopes, which convinces us of things we cannot see. It is more than seeing the conclusion of an argument, it is a living awareness that reality is so. That is why one having faith cannot convey what it is to one without it. You cannot tell a blind man what seeing is, or that color exists. Putting this analogy to an unbeliever, it will naturally irritate him to madness, but is exact.
Although faith is in the intellect, it is moved to it by the will. The intellect is the faculty whose job is to know, and any interference by the will seems like a usurpation. There is some truth in relation to natural knowing, where the assent of the intellect is based on the evidence given it. This truth is not the whole truth, as to the relation of will and intellect, even in the natural activity of knowing, and in the assent of faith. The faith, we are here concerned, does not depend on the evidence presented to the intellect, but on the grace of God. Grasping this, we can see what part God's prior action plays on the will.
While God does not do violence to nature, a direct impulsion, producing certitude of faith in the intellect, might do great violence to nature. The will is deeply concerned in the intellect's decision, because the will is profoundly affected by anything following the assent of faith. For instance, the interference with pride, in the need of union with the will of God, left to itself is quite capable of preventing the intellect from giving the assent. A less obvious reason is that all men find certitude difficult. The absoluteness and inescapable yes or no of certitude, is something we shrink, all in some and some in vast measure. A shrinking of finality, comparable to people who cannot decide to get married. They would like to marry that particular person, but he cannot be sure and hesitate, resulting in someone else marrying her. The unsure man lives with conflicting possibilities and dies without issue. This fear of certitude is a disease of the will. The intellect is not really in doubt. It is the will that persuades it, that it is.
This may be a reason why God gives the impulsion of grace to the will. Without it, the truths by which we assent by faith, are not presented direct to the intellect with their own evidence, but with evidence revealed by God, and not stated as they are in their own reality but only far as human language can utter them. Even with the illumination God gives to the intellect, it still needs the support of the God-moved will. This first action of the will in the assent of faith may seem mysterious, but has a superb consequence. The root of the Supernatural Life is faith. Faith’s first action is in the will, the faculty of our love. Love is the fruit, and also the root of Life.
By gaining the virtue and making the act of faith, what do we believe? We believe God, as all that is said by God is true, as He has said it. Faith puts our mind in unquestioning acceptance of what God has said, not meaning that we know all that God has said, allowing the possibility of ignorance or actual error. Believing all that God has said, we implicitly possess it, and may actually know it, but must use our intellect to find it. By finding the teacher, who can tell us, with certainty what things God has said, we possess certain truths. Possession of these truths is not the same as the virtue of faith. There are three elements: the preparation of the will and intellect to cooperate with God's grace; the virtue of faith and the truths we possess by faith.
The defects in the first or third of these elements, do not mean defects in our faith. We may have fallen into erroneous arguments; or may have misunderstood some of the teachings of God, and not heard of others. Neither is a defect in our faith, the virtue by which the intellect adheres to God, as the source of truth. If the preliminary inquiry, as to where the revealed truths by God are to be found, is totally successful, we discover that the Church is their repository, custodian and teacher. Even one who has not come so far, may still have found truths revealed by God, and by God's grace accepted them, and so have the virtue of faith. The teaching of the Church is the rule of faith. One who has not found it, will not have access to all the truths God has revealed. His faith is not doing all for him that faith can do. It is still the supernatural virtue of faith, the root of the supernatural life.
30.3
With Faith the whole of our supernatural equipment enters the soul, the theological virtues, the moral virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We are supernaturally alive, as. the soul is made new in its essence and operations. It is, has its be-ing and does it’s be-ing, at a higher level; not only its be-ing at a higher level, but it has the power to act at a higher level. Grace and the virtues are not something external given the soul for use, as an eye might be enabled by a microscope for seeing things too small for it. Grace and the virtues are in the soul itself, much as seeing is in the eye itself. The theologians call them habits. Habit is a modification of a nature, making it more apt to act in a way. The habit of piano-playing is a real modification; a change of mind and body to produce music from a piano. It is something real and objective, that one either has or lacks. It enables us to do something which without it we could not do.
The virtues have all three elements of habit: a modification of our nature, something actually in our nature and not an external aid. They are real and objective, not a matter of feeling; and enable us to do specific things, which otherwise we would not be able. They allow us to believe supernaturally, hope supernaturally and love supernaturally. They differ from natural habits in the way we acquire them. The supernatural habits are received in one act from God, while a natural habit is acquired by the continual repetition of certain acts. Though the mode of acquisition is different, the supernatural virtues are habits, as those we acquire for ourselves.
Faith is simply the acceptance of God as our teacher. Hope is a complex of three things: desiring God (our final union with God); the difficulty; and the possibility. With all three in full operation, we hope. We long for union with God in Heaven, and rely on His promise that we shall attain it. We know that our own powers are insufficient, impossible without His help. Our salvation is wholly a work of God. We know also that God will not save us without our co-operation. We must obey His laws and use the means He has set for us. To err on either would be a sin of presumption. It is presumptuous to think that God will save us if we make no effort; more presumptuous to think that we can save ourselves unaided.
The opposite from presumption is despair, an absence of the virtue of hope, which may be one of two failures. We may cease to hope by not wanting to achieve union with God and setting our aim on created things, or by feeling that we have reached so low a point that even the grace of God can no longer save us. The first is a cheaper thing, while there is almost nobility in the second, as a certain fineness of spirit is necessary before a man could be aware, or over-aware, of his baseness. It is still a want of trust in God, and an exaggeration of the part the self is meant to play in salvation. St. Paul speaks of the magnificence of hope. (see Rom. 8:35-39)
It is in Charity we love. We love God, and our neighbor, because God loves him. Charity has suffered, both from those not knowing that it means love, and from many who do. In the modern world charity has become associated with help to the poor, given without heart and poisoned by condescension, the coldest word in the language. Charity means love, and It is great to know, provided one knows what love means. Charity has become a cold word in the modern mouth, while love has become a sentimental word, with emotional overtones. We must separate love from its emotional accompaniment. Love will emerge the stronger, as it is the highest and strongest act of the will. It means that the will has deliberately chosen God as the supreme value, by which all others must be measured. In relation to our neighbor, it means willing his good; as much as we will to ourselves. In the natural order, love will inevitably have some accompaniment in the emotion. The emotions do not belong wholly to the soul, or to the body. They are a certain excitement in our organism, made possible because our soul is united to our body, so that the states of the soul have bodily effects. An angel, having no body, has no emotions. Thus, love is not an emotion but can produce an emotion, set up certain vibrations in the bodily organism, which have their effect on the state of the soul.
We must grasp that our supernatural life has no direct access to our emotions. As our supernatural love of God brings our natural power of loving into play, it will tend to produce a feeling of love. Not this feeling of love, nor the operation of our natural power of loving, is the thing that essentially matters, but the supernatural gift by which we choose God as our supreme good. The emotional accompaniment will depend on the temperament of the individual. Its absence is no matter for concern. We should not assail our souls to make them feel love for God. For most, prayer will suffice on the side of feeling. (see 1Cor. 13:1-3)
Faith, Hope and Charity persist, all three: but the greatest of them all is charity. Charity is the life-giving virtue, making the other virtues alive. It is possible to lose charity by mortal sin, yet retain faith and hope, but in the absence of charity they are dead. Charity is the union of man's will with God's will. Lose charity, and the union is broken, the invitation to God to dwell in us withdrawn; so that the life which flows from His in-dwelling ceases in us. Charity is love; and throughout all that is, the uncreated being of God and the universe at all levels, love and life go together. Love is life-giving. The denial of love is the destruction of life.
30.4
The theological virtues are concerned directly with God. Moral virtues deal with the conduct by which we come to God. A brief reflection on the ways in which we may deviate from our goal will show the relation of the moral virtues to man's necessity. We may deviate, by a failure of the intellect to grasp the bearing of our actions, or by the will failing to act, either in the control of ourselves or in relation to other men, according to the true light that the intellect has.
So, our intellect may see what things help towards our eternal salvation and what hinder, this is the virtue of Prudence. Its works directly on the intellect, providing a rule for which activities of the will may be regulated. The will operates properly when it keeps to the right path which the intellect operating properly sees. Prudence is not the virtue to avoid on all occasions, for use of the virtue Fortitude. Prudence is not timid, seeing the bearing of conduct, not on our immediate convenience, but on our ultimate salvation. By Prudence, the martyr clearly sees his way to martyrdom. The word Prudence is another form of the word providence, and providence is from the Latin word "to see". It is the virtue that sees in advance and provides.
The other three virtues furnish the will with the requirements to act prudently. Justice addresses our relations with others. It means that the will is set towards their having whatever is due them. It is not simply a willingness to restrict our own desires, for strictly our due, but a firm will for all to have their due. Our Lord urges us to hunger and thirst after justice. This hunger and thirst is different from the sort of diffused niceness which, provided having what is due to us, finds a sort of agreeableness in the thought that others should be as fortunate.
Temperance and Fortitude are for the perfecting of our conduct in relation to ourselves. Between them they cover the two principal deviations that come from within the will. By Temperance we control our natural impulse towards the things we should shun. By Fortitude we control our natural impulse to avoid the things we should face. Temperance strengthens us against certain pleasures that solicit us; Fortitude against certain dangers and difficulties that frighten us. Temperance moderates, Fortitude stimulates.
30.5
With grace perfecting his soul in its very being, the theological virtues relating his faculties at this new level to God, and the moral virtues regulating his activity in relation to created things, it would seem that more is not required. The majority, among them St. Thomas, teach that with this equipment, a man could obtain beatitude, but haltingly. By the virtue of Faith, he believes whatever God has revealed; but Faith does not of itself tell all that God has revealed, nor give any profound understanding of truths that he does know. It gives him certainty that what God has revealed is true, but not what it is or means. For these, short of new supernatural aid from God, he would have to use his own powers of inquiry and judgment. At best, the result would be an alarming admixture of ignorance and error. He might or might not find the Church, by which God gives the fullness of His revelation. Finding the Church, he might or might not understand the truths given him. Special situations would arise where no Church teaching seems to apply, and he may or not succeed making the right application a general principle.
This said of Faith applies in principle to Prudence. By it our intellects are formed so they will judge concrete situations in the light of God's revelation, as to the reality of things. This will be as far as they know God's revelation, and as far as they have used of their intellect to find it.
Even with Sanctifying Grace, the Theological and Moral Virtues, the intellect would not be equipped for action with speed or certainty. As the will depends on the intellect for light, the operation of the will would be affected by dimness in the intellect. The will finds such difficulty, that even without further aid from God than the virtues which perfect it, one would be glad, if God gave further aid. For the function of more light for the intellect, and special aid for the will, when difficulties call for it, God gives us, along with the virtues, the Gifts of the Holy Spirit to illumine our mind and to strengthen our will. God continually gives us Actual Graces, impulses of divine energy which, if the soul responds, will move intellect and will in the right way. The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are habits residing in the soul in a state of grace, making the soul capable of responding readily and fruitfully to these Actual Graces when God gives them. The soul, even without Gifts, could receive some motion from Actual Grace, but less swift and certain motion. The action of the Spirit, says Christ Our Lord (John 3:8), “is like a wind that breathes where it will, and we can hear the sound of it, but know nothing of the way it came or the way it goes: but by the Gifts of the Spirit we can go with it.” Isaiah lists the Gifts for us: (see Is. 11:2-3)
The Vulgate, following the Septuagint, gives us seven gifts. The Hebrew has only six, for one Hebrew word stands for Piety and Fear of the Lord. Four of these gifts, Understanding, Wisdom, Knowledge and Counsel are for the perfection of the intellect. By Understanding, the intellect is equipped to respond to the power of God, bringing a comprehension of the truths of revelation and a power to explore them more deeply. We may think of Understanding, as giving new eyes to the virtue of Faith. Wisdom and Knowledge make the soul responsive to the true, the spiritual value of things. Wisdom in relation to God Himself and Knowledge in relation to created things. Understanding is a special value in enabling us to see the difficulties of Faith, and not be troubled. Counsel makes the mind responsive to God's guidance, relating to the individual problems that face us. It has the same relation to the moral virtue of Prudence, that Understanding has to the theological virtue of Faith.
The three Gifts by which the will responds to the wind of the Spirit of God are Fortitude, Piety and Fear of the Lord. Fortitude relates to the moral virtue of Fortitude; the Fear of the Lord to the moral virtue of Temperance, especially in controlling the turbulence of the flesh. Piety is primarily the love of the instructed heart for God. Piety is love between two, already bound by the bond of authority. The gift of Piety is love of God because of the reverence we owe Him. It gives a keener sensitivity than Justice implies with our fellow men, as God loves them, too.